Wikipedia Sucks!

https://swprs.org/wikipedia-disinformation-operation/

They have more paper-things on WP, usually in German. I have no idea what to make of the SWPRS, apart from a general anti-American slant. There is no mention of them on WP itself; or much of anywhere else....

an interesting group indeed - on one page they list the execrable Bellingcat as a good resource on "Russian propaganda," while on another they list it among organizations funded by the NED, acknowledging it is American propaganda (& the slimiest underhanded sort at that for refusing to declare its biases openly). i guess "good" doesn't necessarily equate to "truthful," but it sure implies it.
this article on Wikipedia however is short, accurate & to the point (& i'm not just saying that because they list one of my articles in "further reading"). one very rarely sees Slim Virgin talked about in even the Philip Cross-inspired discussions of UK intelligence presence on WP.

Nice article about Wikipedia:
https://swprs.org/wikipedia-disinformation-operation/

It was picked up today by:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wik ... -operation

So we have an article on a disinformation operation published on a web site of unclear responsibility, being picked up by others, i.e., looks exactly like a disinformation operation. It is possible to create articles that appear verifiable, all that, but information has been cherry-picked to create a desired impression. In other words, unless we can thoroughly research a topic ourselves, we are vulnerable to manipulation.

(and this is not a claim that the site is disinformation, only noting an obvious resemblance).

We badly need reliable filtering, we are inundated with "information" of sometimes quite doubtful provenance, and this influences elections, etc. Reliable filtering was the job of responsible media.

And, of course, the first target of real disinformation operations will be responsible media.

The problem is us. We don't support responsible media, we expect it to be free *and* responsible. And so we get what we deserve, and I just hope that doesn't mean the destruction of civilization, which isn't impossible.

WP is surely one of ArpAnet's runaway successes, in any case. But I don't think of Wikipedia, as a whole, as being a disinformation operation, at least not as such. The bureaucratic technology protecting certain sectors, certain dys-ops, and restricting speech is pretty effective, under the convenient cover of the crowd (of fans).

Wiki-who is important, but it doesn't always tell you what you think it does (page moves/splits, archiving references, etc. all influence character counts). It says a lot that it is not activated on policy & guideline pages on en-wp. (There, since there are no references & relatively few templates it would be more likely to identify the authors of the actual wiki-text, but it isn't activated on that namespace)

spies, creepy stalkers, periodic off-Wiki take-downs...

So this Swiss propaganda page is hosted by wordpress, I gather. Top secret stuff. Apparently the wordpress servers are located in Original Research, US:

Registrant Organization: secret
Registrant State/Province: OR
Registrant Country: US
Name Server: NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
Name Server: NS2.WORDPRESS.COM
Name Server: NS3.WORDPRESS.COM

merged threads about the same item

PS I checked the DNS record--it's just a generic Wordpress blog, no owner information.....smells like a disinfo operation to me

Daniel Brandt wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 10, 2020 5:25 pm

It was picked up today by:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wik ... -operation

The user comments are HILARIOUS. One nerd went on a LONG tirade claiming that Wales and Sanger are Jews and

The Jewish computer programmer Ben Kovitz is the one who suggested to Larry Sanger, Nupedia's editor-in-chief, to transfer the online encyclopedia to a wiki support. Larry and Jimmy Wales accepted and from that time, Wikipedia took over Nupedia and became a huge success.
Larry Sanger, one of the two recognized cofounders, is openly Jewish. In their rabblings of what different famous Jews are doing The Jewish Chronicle mentions Sanger in an article "Larry Sanger... creates a new Wikipedia", The Jewish Chronicle, 26 October 2006, p. 10.

And it goes on AND ON AND ON from there. Loads of "zionist conspiracy" crap, and jokes about it. Probably good that the fools can't see the book-wiki notes about the now-ancient Israel/Palestine editwarring on WP. Wp content today on the subject is more balanced and less pro-Israel than it was back in 2008. But I suspect that might be a little too "nuanced" for ZeroHedge cranks.

Ha ha ha:

Wikipedia is owned by Masonic Zionist insider Jimmy Whales. All are insiders who are either UK Freemasons or connected to them. Long know & already proven Judeo-Masonic Jesuit Conspiracy. Those woke get a front row seat to the failed social experiment.

El_C is a raving nut, but OMG COMMUNIST

Wikipedia administrator user El_C (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:El_C) is an open communist who censors, removes and blocks user who try to reveal any information about Iranian government relationships with Israel. An example can be seen in the pages of Sam Mizrahi, controversial Toronto developer and Mahmoodreza Khavari, former Iranian banker and fugitive, where El_C removed all the references from published articles to whitewash the fact that former Iranian banker and supposedly anti-zionist Mahmoodreza Khavari who worked very closely with Mahmood Ahmadinejad, embezzled billions to the most hardcore supporter of Israel in Toronto, Sam Mizrahi, all with the complete knowledge and cooperation of Canadian, Iranian and Israeli governments.

And speaking of Zero Hedge:

"Is Zero Hedge a Russian Trojan Horse? "

ericbarbour wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:27 am

And speaking of Zero Hedge:

"Is Zero Hedge a Russian Trojan Horse? "

Wow. I was struck by the "manifesto" of Zero Hedge, not merely defending anonymity, but claiming that somehow anonymous speech should be more trustworthy than attributed.

we also believe that keeping authorship anonymous moves the focus of discussion to the content of speech and away from the speaker- as it should be. we believe not only that you should be comfortable with anonymous speech in such an environment, but that you should be suspicious of any speech that isn't.

This completely confuses free speech with reliability. Anonymous speech cannot be used as a proof of anything, and that is why whistleblowers can be and should be protected. But if personal or organizational reputation is thrown out the window, we have nothing left but knee-jerk reaction which is easily manipulated.

However, anonymous authorship is not the problem. The problem would be anonymous editing and publication management. Have factual claims in articles been responsibly checked? Is there an overall bias with cherry-picking of sources? It is not authorship that makes a source reliable, it's publication management. Wikipedia, by the way, got this totally confused. Papers on cold fusion, published in mainstream journals (if you read the Wikipedia article, you'd think that an oxymoron) were attacked because the author was allegedly a "believer." But it's not the author that makes a review paper reliable source -- which is what was under discussion -- but the publisher. That whole discussion on RSN was a blatant demonstration of how factional bias works.

Heh! My favorite topic, okay? The real topic here is Fake News. And the most prolific user of that term has been the most prolific creator of the same. Clever.

From the New Republic article:

This is the future we are careening toward: a world where the “news” becomes whatever material holds readers’ attention, no matter what it is, and is delivered by a machine that doesn’t distinguish between true and false or between facts and propaganda, so long as it maximizes revenue. It’s the cold logic of the markets applied to publishing.

That also applies to web sites that are nominally non-profit. If a user lies and misrepresents and continuously trolls, it's fine if it creates more traffic and makes the site entertaining. Responding to lies generally requires more words and is boring. Who cares? Wow, did you see that funny retort? The King of Snark strikes again!
Or so it seems. The real effect may be hidden and subtle, readers driven away in disgust, and that famed gender disparity.